Pampered Pets

Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky Clues

TUESDAY PUZZLE — It feels so satisfying when you get a theme that feels particularly relevant to you, especially when the rest of the grid requires a broad base of knowledge. This puzzle, a collaboration by Sarah Sinclair and Amie Walker, will take you from Parliament to the Olympics to Geology 101, and a solid theme makes it feel more manageable.

Today’s Theme

I’ve gotten in the habit of solving the way I do when I’m testing: in order from 1A to 63D. This is a good way to be thorough, but not what I would recommend for the most enjoyable solve. By taking a crack at the theme first, you may unlock fill that otherwise would have taken a long time to untangle. (I, for one, was stuck on 32D for way longer than I needed to be).

The revealer, CHORAL GROUP (62A), points to the ends of 17-, 31-, 37- and 48-Across. It becomes clear after 17A [Role for which James Gandolfini won three Emmys], which I recognized as TONY SOPRANO, even though I admittedly have never seen an episode of “The Sopranos.”

I knew to fill in ALTO, TENOR and BASS in the following theme answers even though I don’t know anything about freshwater fish (48A).

Tricky Clues

68A [About 90 percent of all volcanic rock on Earth]: I knew it was lava rock, but I couldn’t remember the name for it. Middle school science class was a long time ago. Luckily, the downs in the center of the grid are pretty classic, so I was able to get BASALT once I made my pass through them.